Talk:Alūksne

Neutrality tag
Ghirlandajo -- if you add the tag, you should make a note on the talk page explaining your reasoning. My source is Latvju enciklopēdija (Stockholm: Trīs Zvaigznes, 1952-1953), p. 45, entry "Alūksne": "Pēc A. pils ieņemšanas Šeremetjeva karapulki nopostīja apkārtni un deportēja visus iedz.," which translates exactly as I paraphrased it in the article. The destruction of Southern Livland at the time is well documented by many sources. Spekke: "The Tsar gave the order to destroy the country completely so that the Swedes should find no support there. [...] The number of local pesants taken as prisoners of war was so large that the Russian Field Marshal had to consider how to provide shelter and guards for them." (Arnolds Spekke: History of Latvia: An Outline. Stockholm: M. Goppers/Zelta Ābele, 1951.) --Pēteris Cedriņš 15:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I see... when the Russian troups arrive, they either "sack" the town or "lay waste to the area and deport all the inhabitants"... when other troops arrive, they just "incoporate" the town into their territory. It is a typical logic of puerile nationalism: Russians are evil, the crusaders, etc are nice. And the Swedish/Latvian sources you quote are just happy to propagate this POV. --Ghirla -трёп- 15:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sacking a town is sacking a town, and deporting inhabitants is deporting inhabitants. It either happened or it didn't -- my sources say it did, and these sources were compiled by reputable scholars. I'm afraid I've no affection for "puerile nationalism" -- neither do I have any affection for puerile imperialism or Russian chauvinism, sorry. Your contention that "the crusaders" are portrayed as "nice" is ridiculous -- the same sources document other destruction throughout Latvia's history, including that of the Germans. They also document positive contributions by Russians, Germans, etc. The time and place in question, in Spekke for instance, is described thusly: "The work of destruction in Livonia seems to have exceeded the destructive efforts of the Poles at an earlier period." See, the Poles are not described as "nice," either! That the Swedish period was better for the inhabitants of Livonia is documented at length, Ghirlandajo, and it does not require any so-called russophobia to recognize that fact -- the Swedes introduced reforms that included schools for the peasantry (in which Glück happened to be a major figure), restriction of the nobles, reduction of their estates, etc. -- these reforms were rolled back under Russian rule, brutality became prevalent, and the population suffered thereby. That doesn't imply that the Swedish armed forces were "nice" -- not too many armed forces were or are. Swedish rule, however, is even today recalled as comparatively benefic. (If you are doing well, you can say "kā zviedru laikos" -- "as in the Swedish era.")


 * This is not my article. I merely edited a passage -- it had said that one Glück, an administrator, worked for Sheremetyev. Sorry, but Glück is very prominent in Baltic history and not merely an administrator, the future Catherine I was his foster daughter and not his servant, and being taken hostage by Sheremetyev's forces is different from applying for a job. He went on to become an educator and translator in Moscow. --Pēteris Cedriņš 16:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I changed wording and removed neutrality tag - it seems that now there is no problem with POV, see for your self if it is okay now. By the way crusraders also deported inhabitants, maybe not from this town, but in general they did. -- Xil/talk 20:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that POV tag here is needed, unless more arguements will be provided. Medieval history is not modern history, of course cities were sacked and burned and populations killed - and armies of all nations did that. Of course, so did the Orders and the Swedes; and that will of course be written into articles about those cities and towns where there are historical sources that claims such things done by the Orders or the Swedes or any other power. I have no such sources for Alūksne, but if somebody has, include that information. Remember, that this is an article about a single town, and of course it might be so that a single town received relatively more damage from one side than others; if some article would be of a lager scope, e.g. called "Wars in Latvia", and would continuously list Russian army as slaughtering local population, etc. while wouldn't mention the events when the other nations' forces burned towns and such, it would be POV (but such POV should be corrected by adding information about the damage done by the other nations rather than merely adding a POV tag). And, of course, it can never be said so that some source is POV just because it comes from some particular nation - nation is not a single person, it is nationalistic to think of a nation as of one single whole with a single mind. Particular historians might be pushing their POV (same as particular editors of Wikipedia), however not a whole nation. If you would assume that some particular source is POV, you have to prove why, by noting e.g. counterfactual information from taht or other works of the people who wrote the original book/article which is used as a source, or giving other sources that claim different version of the events. When there are no such things provided, POV accusations are useless as under this logic we could put the POV tag on almost every Wikipedia's article. Remember, we are writting an encyclopedia, not a politically (rather than factually) correct version of history. Burann 12:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Olūksna
The sentence "The later name Alūksne comes from the Latgalian word olūksna, meaning a spring in the forest." is based on this external link. Olessi 20:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)